There was a ghost sighting at spring training in Florida on Sunday. Or rather, there were two ghost sightings to be precise.
That’s how many times New York Mets rookie pitcher Kodai Senga has thrown his famous ‘ghost forkball,’ an off-speed pitch that has mesmerized Japanese hitters for the better part of the past decade.
After signing a five-year, $75 million contract this offseason, the 30-year-old right-hander was making his spring training debut against the St. Louis Cardinals, meaning Sunday’s game was the first official sighting of Ghost forkball in North America.
Early reviews of Senga were mixed, but his knee-bending off-speed pitch was undeniably impressive.
Cardinals phenom Jordan Walker, considered one of the biggest prospects in baseball, was the first victim of the ghost forkball, missing the 83 mph bid for one of Senga’s two strikeouts.
New York Mets rookie pitcher Kodai Senga, 30, revealed his famous ‘ghost forkball’ during his spring training debut Sunday in Florida. The pitch has frustrated Japanese hitters for more than a decade.
According to MLB’s Statcast, which tracks an array of data on nearly every aspect of baseball, Senga’s forkball to Walker traveled just 83.2 mph with 1,158 rotations per minute. Best of all, or “worst of all,” as Walker discovered, the pitch appeared to have fallen off a table, falling 41 inches with another 11 inches of break.
On its own, the pitch wouldn’t be enough to make sluggers like Walker look foolish, but coupled with a fastball that topped 98.6 mph on Sunday, the phantom fork has the potential to devastate National League hitters in 2023.
But Sunday was far from perfect for Senga, who threw 42 pitches against the Cardinals.
A hanging curveball was squashed by St. Louis’ Tres Barrera for a home run. Senga also struggled with positioning at times, walking the first two batters he faced.
‘[I felt] very rushed at first,’ Senga said through an interpreter after his first outing using MLB’s new shot clock. “I thought if I had more free time at the end, I could settle in. But [the pitch clock] I just ended up rushing everything, including my mechanics.’
New York Mets starting pitcher Kodai Senga throws during the second inning of a spring training baseball game against the St. Louis Cardinals on Sunday.
The good news for Mets fans is that Senga isn’t counted on as the team’s ace. With the reunion of former Detroit Tigers All-Stars Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer, Senga is looking more like a mid-rotation arm, which wasn’t how he was seen in Japan.
Over 11 seasons with the Fukuoka Softbank Hawks, Senga posted an impressive 2.59 earned run average and struck out 10.3 batters per nine innings.
The phantom fork, categorized by Statcast as a “splitfinger,” was a big part of that, and major league hitters are beginning to see why.
“It’s a really unique shape,” Mets slugger Pete Alonso told reporters after taking on Senga during live batting practice. “I don’t really have anything to base it on. It’s like it’s his own tone. It’s pretty good.
what did you say NorthJersey.com Through an interpreter, Senga began throwing pitches in 2013 as a reliever.
Over 11 seasons with the Fukuoka Softbank Hawks, Senga posted an impressive 2.59 earned run average and struck out 10.3 batters per nine innings.
‘In 2013, when I was coming out of the ‘pen’, that’s actually when I started doing the splitter, and that’s how it happened.
“I don’t know if it was the way I was practicing, but I was throwing it just playing catch for a while, but I came off the mound in a bullpen one time and it came to me instantly,” he said.
As for the name, Senga can’t remember who coined it, but its origin is pretty obvious.
“I don’t know who named it for me, but it came from the hitters, saying, ‘It just went away,'” he said. “He Just Disappeared”, and then became the phantom fork.
And as for whether the pitch is technically a forkball or a split-finger fastball (aka splitter), Senga quietly believes it’s the latter.
“It was called a forkball in Japan, but when I throw it, it’s not like I’m really catching the ball between my two fingers,” Senga told NorthJersey.com. “Technically, it’s probably a divider, but you guys can call it whatever you want.”